Yesterday was Friends Day at the Village church. For the past couple of years, we have intentionally developed an outreach strategy, using Friends Day in conjunction with Easter Sunday. Last year, we hosted Friends Day on the Sunday before Easter (which also happened to be the Sunday of the time change). Our attendance was less than anticipated.
This year, I was excited when the calendar revealed the time change would occur on the Sunday following Easter. But yet another hurdle...make that two. Not only did we run into the beginning of Spring Break, we also discovered how precious "Palm Sunday" is to our friends and neighbors.
Our hope was to break 300 for the first time in the history of our church. We had 285.
I'm learning, ever so slowly, the weird psychology involved in setting statistical goals in a church. Sometimes, wonderful advances (such as yesterday's Friends Day) yield disappointing emotions because a human imposed "goal" was not achieved. We had set a goal for 350 which was lofty by design. I had actually hoped we would have at least 300.
How in the world could anyone ever be discouraged with 285, a full 78 person increase over our average Sunday morning worship attendance? Only someone who has chosen to focus more on the "goal" than on God and His ability to convict and convince hearts through outreach efforts like Friends Day.
Why do we base so much of ministry success on our ability to achieve our goals? Why do we struggle to learn that ministry success is not measured on what we do for God but on what God does among us? Why do we fail to see that true ministry is not found in doing His work for Him but in sensing and seeing where He is working and joining ourselves to Him in His work?
